Guardian article on sex workers and disabled people

Quite right women are not inanimate. We are thinking, intelligent beings with moral agency.

Which is why I am so puzzled that it is apparently impossible for an adult women ever to consent to take money in return for offering sex.

Meant your "bacardi breezer" post.

As to your post next post, there are lots of people in the same predicament.

Still, such experiences (not unique, able-bodied people have them too) don't mean you have - yes - the right to sexual services. No-one does.

Selling a body part is a little different from allowing a penis up your vagina. The health risks from the surgery and consequent loss of an organ are quite obvious whereas I would imagine the risks from safe sex are pretty low.

So I don't think your example compares. But if there was a scheme of proper regulation to protect the desparate and the vulnerable, then I do tend to the view that adults ought to be allowed to make their own choices.

I am not blind to the fact that desparate or vulnerable people are involved in prostitution. But I fail to see how sex surrogates are either.

LL - I will tell you why I haven't contributed before now, it's because you are always on the sex industry threads here and you seem desperate to get the women opposed to the sex industry to change their minds and there's something about that I find very creepy.

Spero - Thank you for your contributions to this thread, I have found them very interesting. Although I am only speaking for myself here, while I may think that paying for sex is inherently exploitative, I can understand why someone might do so in these situations.

Also, relating to what you said earlier about what people think about disabled people, whatever the eventual outcome of the Oscar Pistorius case, it is telling that the reaction from quite a few people, particularly in the "less evolved" corners of the internet was that "someone like him" didn't deserve a woman like that, i.e a model like Reeva Steenkamp.

spero - and I am talking about 'rights'.

Because I think the 'right' not to be abused is an important 'right'. Call it an 'opportunity' if you will, but I won't.

If you are supporting prostitution, I believe that you are supporting the right of one person to abuse another, however indirectly. I understand you don't believe that, I do, and I know many people don't believe that, but I'm explaining why I use the term 'right' not 'opportunity' here.

Not the same thing, though.

By buying a barcardi breezer, you're not abusing someone or being ok with abuse.

You are equating alcohol - which is inanimate - with a woman's body.

A woman's body is not inanimate. Sorry.

Why is it rubbish?

sorry, you'll have to give me a little more than that if you want to dissuade me from my arguments.

Spero - do you believe that people should be allowed to sell their kidneys and blood too? It follows on naturally from your argument. My feeling is that they shouldn't... because although there are no doubt people who could sell some blood occasionally with no damage to their health, a system of blood-selling would attract lots of vulnerable people who would cause themselves long-term damage.

But I imagine you would think that is paternalistic?

But, LRD I am not talking about 'rights'. I didn't think LL was either.

I am talking about 'opportunities'.

Spero, that is just rubbish.

My comment was to Marianne - I agree that much more could be done about helping and supporting disabled people. Just talking about it would be good. I cannot remember a single person who sat down with me as a child or adolescent and just talked to me.

I had to figure it all out for myself. And it has taken a long time with a lot of mistakes and misery on the way. Such a waste.

No. That isn't an acceptable argument.

By buying a barcardi breezer in the supermarket I am not 'accepting' or 'endorsing' alcoholism.

I can consume alcohol responsibly. others cannot. For others it is a path to degredation and misery. Same with selling sex.

Ok, finally caught up. Ish. Still no idea what leith was referring to but dead chuffed you think my post (whatever it was) was 'pertinent'. Another time, it'd be lovely if you'd PM me or quote the post as to just observe I didn't show up for debate with you makes me feel creeped out.

Anyhow.

We're talking as if these rights are parallel - the 'right' to have sex/ 'feel human'/whatever you call it, and the right not to be abused for money.

They are not parallel.

It is really offensive to disabled people and sex workers to suggest they are remotely comparable.

**

At this stage in the game, I believe traditionally we segue into the 'happy hooker' debate. So I'll pre-empt. Yes, true, some sex workers are apparently very content with what they do. Whoopie doo. But, since many others are trafficked and abused, and since every time we legitimize one lot we legitmize the whole practice (which I strongly believe we do), this is beside the point.

If someone is genuinely happy to have sex with someone else, I believe you'll find we have a system for that already, one that doens't involve payment and involves plenty of disabled people.

All this focus on getting prostitutes for disabled people is not only damaging to prostituted women (and men), it's also avoiding the real issue - how to give support to disabled people and their partners to have a loving sex life. And how to educate people to understand that disabled people deserve said full and loving sex life.

**

There we go, I knew it'd be sad and disappointing if I only commented once.

Spero

As I said, I don't think you can separate an isolated, potential, hypothetical "happy hooker" scenario from an exploitative sex industry. By using its services you validate it.

Well, you don't have to be or use prostitutes.

But I find it hard to accept why YOUR moral certainties should dictate the choices of others.

So my choice is simply celibacy - even if I found someone quite happy to have sex with me for money?

Spero - you are really not unique in that. Do you think everyone who is unable to have sex should be able to have access to sexual services?

So you deny both me and him/her that choice?Why?

Because I think prostitution is fundamentally wrong.

But I come back to my point - how is something exploitative if both people in the transaction are willing and comfortable?

What you are saying quite clearly is that any relationship involving the buying and selling of sex can NEVER be consensual and the 'happy hookers' are in denial.

I think this is wrong. You should not be able to prohibit an adult using his or her body in a way she or he wants, even if you personally find it morally questionable. This used to be the argument against homosexual relationships.

But as we have discussed below, transactional relationships are very common - what about the Sugar Daddy website for eg?

It doesn't mean that they should be accepted. You don't think these "Sugar Daddy" scenarios are exploitative, on both sides?

You cannot separate isolated experiences from what is essentially an exploitative industry. By justifying it/engaging with it you are validating it.

Ok, you want to keep talking about 'rights', I really don't know why as this is not what anyone is arguing for.

So my choice is simply celibacy - even if I found someone quite happy to have sex with me for money?

So you deny both me and him/her that choice?

Why?

Because sex is such a profound and mystical experience that no one can genuinely be ok with doing it for money? Seriously?

Do you think that as a result of having a disability and therefore being substancialy less likely to be able to have sex with a lover, that women and men should be forced in to celibacy?

Yes, I think that if the options are prostitution or celibacy, then celibacy should be the answer, always.

And please remember that disabled people are really not the only ones facing this.

That sounds like women being more worthy of human status than disabled people.

Similarly, do you think disabled people should have special rights over women and their bodies?

Marianne, you again talk of 'rights' - I repeat, I have never and would never say anyone has a 'right' to sex or use of another's body.

But I disagree with the proposition that prostitution is simply inherently wrong in all circumstances, ever.

I completely agree that it can involve disgusting explotation and degradation, usually of women. I am well aware of these realities as for some years I worked in the asylum law field where trafficked children were a very sad reality.

But as we have discussed below, transactional relationships are very common - what about the Sugar Daddy website for eg?

I think a trained and professional sex surrogate is far less morally questionable than a women seeking an older man over the internet who will pay for her college fees while she provides him with sex or a bit of arm candy.

I have read the articles, which I found quite confused. The author argues that sex is a right (which I disagree with) and that disabled people should be able to pay for sexual services, but then quotes various disabled men who have paid for sex but found it emotionally upsetting and dissatisfying for the reasons I mentioned in my earlier post. There are no quotes from women who have paid for sex or considered paying for sex.

Many of the quotes are wrenchingly sad and I don't think anyone on this thread would dispute that we as a society should change our attitudes to disabled people, and indeed to physical appearance generally.

Sorry for length of that. Didn't realise until I hit 'post'!

Spero - I think you've got to draw the line somewhere, and I don't think prostitution, is any shape or form, is ever right.

Even allowing that there may be some sex workers who "use their bodies to earn money in a way you are happy and comfortable with", it does not mean that the sex industry isn't fundamentally an exploitative one. Which it is.

There are lots and lots of people, not necessarily disabled, who cannot or choose not to, for compelling reasons, to have sex. They have to or choose to live with it.

It really is not a right.

Do you think people in celibate marriages have the right to see prostitutes? What about people who just can't pull? (I am not trying to be "goady" asking these questions.)

Leithlurker: "these discussions always have this prostitution focus"

Well, yes, in case you hadn't noticed, the linked article is about the use of prostitutes by residents of a care home.

So people who are opposed to prostitution, on feminist / ethical / human decency grounds, are going to be opposed to that.

And yet it was implied of posters who expressed those views early on that we were using our objection to the exploitation of prostituted women, to mask our disgust at the idea of disabled people having sex.

That's why I gave up posting and possibly why others didn't bother to start. If you expect people who are educated about the realities of prostitution to just ignore the implications of exploitation for fear of being accused that what we're really doing is using able-bodied privilege (and Leithlurker, you were very quick to assume that of a poster who has since said that she herself is disabled), it is impossible to have a reasoned discussion about the topic of the thread. The thread is about prostitution.

If this were a thread about the broader question of how people with disabilities should be better supported / facilitated in meeting their sexual desires, I'd imagine that possibilities might be discussed, including surrogates, sex therapists, match-making services, whatever. And the extent to which any of those options might blur the lines into prostitution might come up as a point of debate, and hopefully that could be discussed respectfully between people with opposing viewpoints who could agree that 1. it's perfectly normal and healthy for people with disabilities to desire sex and 2. exploitation of other people's desperation in order to access their bodies is a line that should never be crossed, regardless of who the 'client' is.

This thread was started about a particular article, and that article is about the use of prostituted women (I didn't see any mention of men, did you?) who, by the absence of any indication to the contrary, appear to be part of the general population of prostitutes in their area. They're not described as sex therapists, or surrogates, or volunteers.

Spero, you've been very balanced in your posts and have said that you'd be concerned about exploitation. But prostitution is exploitative by nature, and there's certainly nothing in article linked in the OP to suggest that there's anything other than exploitation going on there. The care home staff don't like being "groped", so they help the residents buy in prostituted women to get groped instead . The "happy hooker" myth is just that. It's a myth. It is very, very unlikely that these are carefree, empowered businesswomen, taking part in a mutually beneficial transaction with no cost to their human dignity or their sense of self.